Coun­cil makes trade for last of the la­goon

Porirua City Coun­cil has agreed to pur­sue a land swap with the NZ Trans­port Agency that will mean land at Aotea La­goon and Botham­ley Park will be­come re­cre­ation re­serve un­der coun­cil own­er­ship.

The coun­cil has been try­ing to ac­quire all the land at Aotea La­goon since the 1980s. This last strip of land, owned by the New Zealand Trans- port Agency, will com­plete the process.

NZTA needs to ac­quire land from the coun­cil for the Trans­mis­sion Gully mo­tor­way and are keen to agree a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with the coun­cil to swap land they own at Aotea La­goon and Botham­ley Park.

‘‘This will en­able the coun­cil to have man­age­ment and con­trol over all the land at Aotea La­goon and at Botham­ley Park,’’ says Te Komiti chair­man Euon Mur­rell.

‘‘Aotea La­goon is our premier visi­tor des­ti­na­tion park and the 75ha Botham­ley Park is the ‘green heart’ of Porirua so this will be a sig­nif­i­cant gain for the city.’’

He says the coun­cil’s prop­erty sub­com­mit­tee will be in­volved with ne­go­ti­a­tions on the pro­posed land swap.

The MOU is expected to be ne­go­ti­ated and agreed by mid-2013.

In 2010, the coun­cil and the Min­is­ter of Con­ser­va­tion ap­proved a lease to Aqua­com Ltd for a ca­ble­way at Aotea La­goon sub­ject to a num­ber of con­di­tions.

This was to en­sure the coun­cil re­tained over­all con­trol of land used for any pro­posed ac­tiv­ity.